I Solemnly Swear That I'm Up To No Good
by traash101
Summary: "Maybe, just maybe, can we have a normal year?" The marauders have returned to Hogwarts for their fifth year and they are ready to cause havoc as usual. But when Sirius reveals a secret, and when Remus has a problem that seems unfixable, can mischief really be managed? Warning: Slow Updates
1. Chapter 1

**Hello and welcome to the first chapter of "I Solemnly Swear That I'm Up To No Good..." and I hope you will all enjoy it!**

Moony's POV:

" _Don't stay out too late, Remus," my mother said as she brushed her blonde hair out of her light blue eyes. The smile she smiled when she said these words managed to make the frown on my face reverse into a pleasant smile._

" _I won't," and with that I walk out of the front garden and down the street but not before turning back to wave to my mother. I am supposed to be meeting my friends at the local park however I am a bit late. I break into a run. I turn the corner. I freeze._

 _A body covered in blood lay on the floor, the ghost of his last scream etched upon his face. Dark red liquid surrounded the victim's body like a cloak and the front of his body was torn open by a brute force. I try to scream but no noise comes from my mouth. It seems as if every cell in my body had frozen and it took a great deal of effort to even make myself blink. Crouched next to the body was a nightmare. A werewolf with blood dripping off of its fingers turned to face me and I finally found my voice. I screamed louder than I ever had before and in the distance I heard tires screeching and footsteps drawing closer. I didn't have time to run before the creature latched itself onto my arm and dug its jaws into my flesh. My scream became more distorted as tears started streaming down my face and before the thing could continue to devour me a gunshot went off._

I wake with a start, my heart pounding in my chest, sweat dripping down my face. I stare at my left arm and think about the dream. If only it was just a dream. Today is September 1st and that means I am finally returning to Hogwarts to see Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail. Brushing off the horrid dream, I clamber out of bed and get ready to travel to Kingscross Station.

As I go to double check that I have packed all my things, I look on my table and see the moving picture of the marauders on Christmas. Sirius is ruffling James hair and James is shoving him off whilst laughing; I have my arm around Sirius shoulder and am high fiving Peter at the same time who has the broadest smile on his face. I sigh. It's been a while since I have seen them, but that's going to change today.

James went to Japan with his parents this summer to test out his Japanese speaking skills and every week he has been sending me postcards, mockingly bragging about how amazing he and his holiday is whilst I was at home in rainy England. He has however promised to bring me back some gifts so I'm not going to complain.

This year, like the last, Sirius went to France with his family but he doesn't seem to speak much about his family in the letters he sends unlike James. Sirius, being a part of a well-known pureblood family is expected to speak various languages and be very smart and that was the reason for his trip to France.

The Pettigrew family had saved up a lot of money and had finally been allowed to take Peter to America seeing as he couldn't speak another language. He sent me photos of him at various landmarks and all the sweets he could afford to take with him, and gradually, with every picture he took his face became more freckly instead of tanned like Sirius and James.

It's going to be great seeing them again after so long. I grab my now full to the brim trunk and drag it down the stairs behind me making a lot of noise as I do so. I leave my trunk by the front door and let my nose lead me to the kitchen where I smelt my mother, Hope, cooking bacon and eggs. My father was sitting at the table reading "Werewolves" for the millionth time for the slightest bit of hope that the other times he read it he missed something about a cure. The attempt is futile and I'm sure he knows it but he keeps trying. My father's name is Lyall and he is quite tall, with black hair with patches of grey here and there. He wears big rimmed glasses and he ever so often pushes them up his nose as he reads. My mother also at first wanted to find a way to cure me and we sent hundreds on hiring the best doctors to find a way to return me back to normal but nothing worked. After that my mother realised that nothing could be done. My mother looks a lot younger than my dad but in actual fact she is two years older. She has long blonde hair with blue twinkling eyes that remind me of Professor Dumbledore. She too is tall and thin.

"Morning Remus," she says cheerily as she shares out the food. "I'm going to miss you, but the least I can do is let you leave with a full stomach." I take the plate after thanking her and sit down next to my dad.

"Oh, Remus, look" he said to me pointing towards a sentence on the page he was reading. "Let's try..." I zone out on what he is saying because I already know it's not going to work. Occasionally, whilst he is talking I add "uhuh"'s or "yeah"'s to make it seem like I am listening but in reality I just want him to shut up.

I quickly finish my food and we all turn our heads to the direction of the front door where we heard the honk of the taxi's horn outside. I grab all of my last minute belongings and my trunk, put it in the boot of the taxi, and clamber inside next to my mother who is applying her make-up seeing as she didn't have time in the morning. Shortly after, my father gets in the car and tells the taxi driver where we are heading and we set off.

I turn around to look at the house I'm not going to see until Christmas and I wave goodbye to it as it disappears over the horizon.

Every year at the platform is the same. The tears of parents who are saying goodbye to their first years; the laughter of friends being reunited after so long; and the whistle of the train that signifies the end of one journey and the beginning of another.

"Remember to write every day," father says as he gives me a hug and then ruffles my hair.

"I'm pretty sure we both know that I will forget," I joke and he laughs. I turn to my mother who is dabbing at her eyes with her pink embroidered handkerchief. "I'll miss you mom." I say and give her a hug that she returns a bit too tightly.

"I'll miss you too," she weeps and then the conductor blows the whistle. I give them both one last hug, grab my trunk, and jump onto the train. Luckily there is an empty compartment close to where I got on so I throw my trunk into the overhead compartment and sit close to the window so I can wave goodbye to my parents.

I wipe a tear from my eye and not a moment too soon as Sirius Black comes bursting into the room looking more tan and tall than ever. His hair has gotten much longer since I has last saw it seeing as it is now almost shoulder length. "Bro!" he says coming towards me to give me a high five. I return it a smile finding its way onto my face. Whenever anyone is around Sirius they can't help but smile. He effortlessly puts his trunk next to mine and then sits opposite me when Peter opens the compartment door panting as if he had ran for the train. It seems as if he had eaten a bit too much in America as he seems larger than he was previously. His hair had also changed. It had turned lighter due to the amount of sun and his face was covered in freckles.

"Hi guys!" he says after finally catching his breath and closing the door behind him. We greet him and Sirius and I talk as Peter struggles to get his trunk over his head.

"It's really not that hard," Sirius huffs after watching him struggle for way too long. He stands up and grabs the trunk with one hand. He then swings it over his shoulder and into the space next to his trunk. He then smirks at Peter, bows to my applause, and sits down. Peter goes to sit down next to me but then the train starts moving slowly and he loses balance. I catch him quickly and in the corner of my eye I see what looks like a mop of hair running next to the train. "For god sake Prongs," Sirius says as he too catches sight of James. The train picks up speed and so does James, we laugh at him in the window for a bit but after a while, whilst carrying his trunk he manages to wrench the door of the train open and jump inside. He then walks over to our compartment and opens the door smiling, not even the slightest out of breath.

"Sup," he says and like Sirius, throws his trunk on the rack above our heads.

"Way to make a dramatic entrance," I say amused and he shrugs.

"Well you know me," James smirks and then sits down next to Sirius.

"How do you run so fast?!" Peter asks in awe and James does an exaggerated sigh and I sigh because I know what's coming. Seeing as James is tall he has always had the advantage when it came to running. He, like Peter and I, grew up in the muggle world and so his parents let him go to a running club. Normally, whenever someone brings up the topic of running, he acts as if he is an Olympian being interviewed and is melodramatic about everything he does.

"Well you see Peter, when I was a young boy my father took me into the city to join a running club and ever since then I trained for six nights a week-" James said.

"It was actually two nights a week," Sirius corrected.

"- for five hours a day-" James continued.

"For one hour a day," Sirius corrected again.

"- and that made me the man I am today." James finished, puffing out his chest and flashing his winning smile at Peter.

"And that made him into the cranky, big headed, prepubescent 13 year old he is today," Sirius finished with a smile and Peter and I laughed, whilst James hit Sirius over the head with his jacket.

It's great to be back.

 **Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hiii! Hope you liked that last chapter and if you did, make sure you comment and like and whatever you can do.**

 **Enjoy!**

Wormtail's POV:

"Peter! Hurry up! Mom'll get mad!" John, my brother, shouted into my bedroom to wake me up. I really feel like going nowhere today but if I linger mom will get angry and no one wants that. I turn over on my side and see my empty trunk and my clothes, books, letters, and quills sprawled out all over the floor. It's a wonder why mother hasn't scolded me yet for making such a mess. I somehow manage to disentangle myself from my blue bed sheets and get changed. I have been counting down to this day for ages. The day I get to see my friends again.

I have never really had any luck when it came to making friends in the muggle world. Everyone hated me because I was apparently spiteful and selfish towards other people and therefore popularity has never been my strong point. My self esteem has always been beaten down because of the hatefulness from others but all that changed on the 18th of August 1971 when I got my Hogwarts letter. This was a chance for me to start afresh and take another stab at life. This was a chance for me to finally make some friends and that's exactly what happened.

On the Hogwarts express two years ago I made friends with Remus Lupin who was kind and treated me like an equal and not something he had just scraped off of the bottom of his shoe. Later on, after I persuaded the Sorting Hat to let me into Gryffindor with Remus, Remus introduced me to James Potter and Sirius Black and those three have been my idols ever since. I can't wait to see them again.

Since I was in America for the majority of the summer, I only just had time to buy my books and so my robes are a bit short and tight. I grab them and shove them into my trunk along with everything else on the floor. That should be enough to last me through till Christmas. I almost leave the room when I remember that to do magic I might need my wand, so I double back and search my room from top to bottom until I find it underneath a dirty shirt by the foot of my wardrobe.

Trying my hardest to make as little noise as possible, I pull my trunk down the stairs behind me and set it down beside the door. Clearly I made too much of a ruckus, as my mother comes storming out of the living room wielding the remote as a weapon. Last night because we had just returned from America, my mother's friends (who are also witches) went out partying and they drank a lot. This means that today we have to deal with a woman, who is normally cranky anyway, with a hangover.

"Keep the noise down," she whispers threateningly to me and then, holding her head with her free hand, she walks back into the living room. As quietly as I can, I walk through to the kitchen where my brother is making food for us both. Our father doesn't pay any attention to us and our mother pays too much attention to us (but clearly not in a good way). My mother and I are the only magical people in our family of four as well. My brother has to now endure my mother whilst I am gone because we can't afford to send him to boarding school.

I take the plate of beans and toast that he is offering me and I shovel it down my throat.

"I'm going to miss you, Pete," he says sadly. He is one year younger than me but most people seem to think we are twins. I have a stubby nose and a bad pair of eyes and teeth. I am also short and chubby, whereas he is tall, athletic looking and has 20-20 vision. If you saw us both at the same time you wouldn't think I was the elder sibling.

"I'll miss you too John, but you know I have to go," I say, setting my fork down. His long brown hair falls over his eyes and I know he is hiding his emotions from me. "Don't worry; you will see me at Christmas just like last year." Before he can reply I hear mother calling out for us to leave to drop me off at Kingscross Station. Not wanting to anger her any further, we quickly put our plates in the sink and rushed off to get ready to leave.

Father isn't coming with us to Kingscross simply because he doesn't want to but I don't mind. I never really have minded. I'm used to being ignored and I'm just lucky that I have John to talk to or else I would probably go insane. Between father not talking and mother talking too much I wouldn't be able to cope.

"Out of the way!"

"Excuse me!"

"Sorry!"

It seems like every in Kingscross is going out of their way to shove me into everything I pass. My shoulder aches from bumping into various walls and archways and my foot can't take being stood on for one more moment. My mother is tugging my sleeve as I walk, dragging me along beside her and stumble in a vain attempt to keep up with her brisk walk. I can't wait to get a growth spurt. Finally we make it to platform 9. I look up and above my head I see that it is 10:58. Sadly, seeing as my brother is a muggle, he can't go through the platform and mother can't leave him alone, so I have to go through all by myself. I walk towards him.

"Be good okay, John? Remember our deal, if you write I send you sweets," I joke and he gives me a hug that I gladly return. I go to give mother a hug as well but she turns at the last moment so I end up hugging her arm. I sigh. "Bye mom."

"Bye, Peter. Come on, John. Let's go," she says and leaves without a backwards glance.

I grab my trunk and run through the platform wall to platform 9 ¾ . I see the steam coming from the train and I run as fast as my short legs will take me and I make it onto the train with one minute to spare. I walk along the carriages until I finally see Padfoot and Moony. We greet each other, talk and laugh at Prongs trying to get onto the train, and talk and bit more. After a while we change into our robes to avoid any hassle later on.

It's getting to around nightfall when James finally asks the question. "We are going to do it this year right?"

We all exchange glances. The previous year, seeing as Remus told us about his condition, we agreed to help him through his rough transformations by becoming illegal animagi. James' patronus was a majestic stag and so he chose that as his animagus. Sirius' patronus was a shaggy, long black haired dog and so the name Padfoot was made and his patronus was chosen. Even though my patronus was a hare the rest told me to be a rat so I could "deactivate" the Whomping Willow. I doubt I can manage it though as I can just about manage the simplest of spells for my age whereas Remus, James, and Sirius are around the top of the year.

This year we have decided to do two things. Firstly, we are going to create the marauders map with our vast knowledge of the school grounds. And secondly, we are going to be unregistered animagi. This year is going to be great.

"I don't see why not," Sirius says and Remus looks extremely happy. When he first told us about his condition he was worried that we were going to abandon him like other wizards and witches would have. To be honest I was thinking about doing that because I'm a coward and didn't want to face a werewolf, but Sirius and James were so supportive I had to go along and I'm glad I did too.

"We might as well start with the map then; we need to get some enchanted parchment from Filtch first and then we have got to get some everlasting ink from Slughorn's cupboard. I doubt we need to steal that though because Remus here is our top student," James says smiling and gesturing towards Remus who is blushing. "We can do that on Wednesday. We'll call it: Operation Steal Paper and ink" James said.

"Or we could just call it: Operation Pink for short?" Remus suggests.

"Yeah, or that," James laughs.

I look out the window. Even the shadows of the train now were swallowed by the encroaching darkness. In the gathering gloom the stars and the moon shone brighter in the sky, as if to remind us that even in darkness there is light. The trees flitter past the window and a dark unmoving lake comes into view. Over the hills I see it. Hogwarts. I'm home at last.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hiii! I'm finally back for another chapter. Sorry it took so long. Anyways, enjoy!**

Padfoot's POV:

"James get up!" I yell at the sleeping figure. Every day of every year it's the same thing. I'm an early riser so I usually get stuck with the task of waking up James when Remus and Peter are in the showers.

"Go away," he mutters sinking further under the covers, bringing his pillow down with him. I sigh. I walk away from his bed, grab my wand, and walk back over to James. As I do Remus emerges from the bathroom fully dressed and I motion for him to be quiet. I slowly pull back the cover so it reveals James' sleeping face and then I take action.

"Aguamenti," I say under my breath and a jet of ice cold water emerges from my wand and hit James squarely in the face.

"You git!" he yells as he untangles himself from his sheets and chases after me with his pillow brandished as a weapon. I laugh and try to jump over my trunk in order to get away in style but my foot gets tangled in the nettings around my bed and I trip. As I make contact with the floor, the pillow makes contact with my head multiple times. "Never do that again!" James shouts over the sound of Remus' laughter, hitting me with the pillow as he says every word. When he finishes he moves away, grabs his towel and heads over to the showers muttering profanities and curses under his breath.

"You're gonna do that tomorrow as well aren't you?" Remus said, having finally overcome his fit of laughter and moving over to his bed to grab his bag.

"Too right, Moony," I say getting up from the floor and going over to my bed to pack my bag. It's the first day of school today and as well as I am looking forward to pranking people, and acing all my lessons (as it comes naturally), I'm not looking forward to seeing that slime rag Snape. All I did was tease him a bit as we came off the train and then he goes and throws a dungbomb at me as the Gryffindors made our way to our common room last night. I'll get him back and I'm sure he knows I will.

"What do you think about ruining Snivellus' potion in Potions?" I ask Remus whilst putting _The Standard Book of Spells: Grade 5_ in my black bag.

"Sounds good," he smirks.

*breakfast*

"Boys- your timetables," McGonagall said handing us all a sheet of parchment. I say thanks and take mine and study it carefully as she walks off to people further down the Gryffindor table.

I hear James groan next to me, "why do we have to have Transfiguration with the stupid Slytherins?!" Across the table from me Peter makes some noises and it looks like he is trying to speak to us but he has food in his mouth so we can't understand a single word.

"I'm not sure but I think it's trying to communicate," Remus says, tilting his head to the side and staring at Peter.

"We mean no harm," James then says playing along, pronouncing every syllable clearly to annoy Peter even further.

"Please take our humble offering," I joke, bowing my head down and holding out a slice of toast to Peter whose face has turned red. I look up again and make eye contact with Remus and James and we all burst out laughing. Peter finishes what's in his mouth and then scowls at us.

"You guys are annoying as hell," he says irritated, but as he watches us laugh his scowl disappears and he joins in. "What I mean to say was: why are we still taking Divination." I sigh in frustration. On the bright side though after our O.W.L's we can drop it once and for all.

We continue to eat and chat until the owls arrive. I didn't bother look up knowing that my family didn't care enough about me to use their precious time to write to their own child, so instead I became instantly transfixed with my cornflakes. As I predicted, letters fell in front of James, Remus, and Peter. I'm used to the feeling of abandonment and being neglected so I am no longer bothered about letters from home, unlike when I was in my first year.

*flashback*

" _Damn, is that a Howler already?!" James said staring at the red envelope in front of me. "You better get out of here and fast," he said as the envelope began vibrating. I said bye to James, Peter, and Remus and ran with the letter to my dorm. I slammed the door shut just as the letter exploded and my father's voice rang through the dorm. I moved to sit on the bed._

" _IS WHAT I'VE BEEN HEARING TRUE?! ARE YOU IN GRYFFINDOR?! IF THAT'S THE CASE DON'T BOTHER COMING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, NO ONE WANTS A LION IN THEIR HOME! YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO THE FAMILY NAME AND YOU ARE LUCKY REGULUS PURSUADED ME TO LET YOU STAY OVER FOR SUMMER OR ELSE YOU WOULD BE ON THE STREETS!" and with that the letter tore itself up and fell on the floor in pieces._

 _I started to sob into my pillow. My parents have always been abusive and never really cared much for Regulus and I, but I was always accepted in the house and as part of the family. However now I'm a "disgrace" who deserved to be living on the streets because I was sorted into a house of the wrong colour and nature._

 _I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and so I quickly dried my eyes and sat up and pretended to be searching through my trunk. It was James, Peter, and Remus._

" _What was that all about?" Remus asked._

" _Ah, it was nothing. Regulus just wanted to know what house I was sorted into."_

*End of flashback*

"What did they say?" I asked James who was reading the letter.

"Nothing really interesting," he said folding the letter and putting it in his pocket. He fixed his hair and then looked at his watch, "Damn, we should get going." And with that we all stood up and headed out for our first lesson, History of Magic. "Perfect lesson to put me back to sleep..." James said and we laughed as we walked down the corridor.

"Oh yeah, Sirius and I were planning to ruin Snivellus' potion today, you want to join?" Remus said to James and he agreed as he was about to open the door to history of magic. "Wait!" Remus whispered reminding us all hat we are late. Remus opened the door slightly and saw the Professor Binns back was to us so we could walk in undetected. Remus turned back around to us. "Okay walk into the classroom backwards so when he turns around it looks like we are leaving, then he will tell us to go back to our seats and then we don't get caught." We nod and open the door, close it quietly and start walking backwards. As we do I notice James winking at Lily and her blushing and turning away to talk to her friend who was hurriedly taking notes.

"Where do you think you're going?" Binns asks and he sends us to our seats. I give Remus a low five under the table and then we get our stuff out and get ready to take notes.

I see Snivellus with his hand up, " _I bet he is going to snitch on us,"_ I think to myself and I nudge James and point subtly to Snape. He nods and gets his wand out. "Professor?" Snape said and then as Binns turns around Snivellus turns around to smirk at us marauders.

"Yes Severus?" he says annoyed at having to stop his lesson twice now.

"James, Sirius, Peter, and Re-" he started but then the legs of his chair mysteriously vanished and he plummeted down to the floor. The whole class erupted into laughter and James did too quickly putting his wand back into his pocket. Lily was the only one who stayed silent and she rushed over to Snape and helped him up. She fixed his chair with her wand and went back to her seat and sent a glare over to the marauders who were doing their best to blend in with the rest by laughing.

"Okay everyone settle down." Binns said and the class reluctantly became quiet again. "Now then The Goblins Revolt was led by-" he tried to say but was interrupted by James hitting his head off the table as he tried to get to sleep once again. The class started laughing once again but Binns looked furious. "Mr Potter, what _are_ you doing?!"

"Trying to sleep, sir," James said honestly.

"Well, do it quietly!" Binns said, obviously not hearing James's response properly.

"Will do sir," James said yawning and laid his head back down on his table and fell asleep. Binns turned back to the blackboard and continued writing down dates and names of Goblins. I chucked a piece of crumpled paper at Remus' head in front of me and he turned around annoyed.

"What the hell was that for?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"Let's play "how many things can we fit on James"!" I say and he smiles and we start piling things up on James who is a deep sleeper so he didn't notice anything much to the class's amusement. This went on for a while with the class contributing things to put on James whilst Binns remained oblivious to what his class was doing. The bell rang loudly around the classroom showing the lesson was finished and James bolted upright, causing everything to fall to the ground with a loud crash. Amazingly, however Binns didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

"Finish reading chapter 7 on the Goblin's revolt and write an essay about how Urg led the Goblins to failure." And with that he glides out of the classroom.

"You git!" James yells at me for the second time today and I just laugh as I put my books away in my bag. James sighs and ruffles his hair once again and some girls behind and next to him giggle. "Let's go. Herbology then potions." He said and then all four of us turned and walked through the door thinking about how Snape will react in Potions.

We were walking down the corridor, which led us outside, talking about Quidditch when a fourth year Ravenclaw girl came up to us, holding three letters. "Are you James, Sirius, and Remus?" she said completely ignoring Peter who looked insulted.

"Yeah," I answer. She holds out the letters. We each take one.

"It's from Slughorn, Slug Club evening next week," she says, I smile at her as I say thanks and she blushes and runs off.

"Turn off your charm Sirius," Peter says jokingly and I laugh. I toss my hair dramatically behind my shoulder.

"It's impossible," I say and then start to strut down the corridor and I hear them laugh behind me. They catch up to me and Remus says.

"I was just thinking whilst we are at the Slug Club thing Peter could get the ink."

"Good idea, you can use my cloak but for Merlin's sake be careful with it," James said and Peter said he would.

*potions*

"You will be making the Draught of Peace today class. You will find that everything you need is over there," Slughorn said gesturing towards the cupboards," and you may begin." The second the words leave Slughorn's mouth, Snape dashes over the cupboard and grabs his equipment.

"Oh great I don't want to touch the cupboard now even if I could, it's all greasy now," I say loud enough for Snape to hear as I walk past. James laughs and we make a big show of gingerly reaching out a taking out equipment and once we put down our things, wiping our hands on our robes.

"You guys are so dramatic," Remus says but he has a smile on his face. James and I are working together and Remus is working with Peter for this potion. "I brought the dungbomb," he says quietly as he points to his pocket.

"I got the exploding marbles," Peter says forgetting to keep his voice down. I slap him on the back of his head.

"Jesus Peter, keep your damn voice down," I say pretending to look at the board but really looking to see if anyone heard. Luckily it seemed that no one had noticed Peter's slip up and I relaxed again. James and I worked on our potion for a while longer and as our potion slowly turned turquoise Slughorn came over. "Excellent work boys, I trust you got my letter?" We both nodded and he smiled in response and walked over to check other people's potions.

"Okay it's time," I mutter to James and Peter hands him the exploding marbles and Remus is ready with the dungbomb. James looks around to make sure no one is watching and he throws the exploding marbles behind Snape. They explode on impact with the floor and everyone is shocked and looking over in the corner. Remus then uses the distraction and throws the dungbomb into Snape's potion with explodes as well as breaking the cauldron. He immediately looks over at the marauders but we were busy our potion. The class starts laughing

"Dear oh dear," Slughorn said and he handed Snape a broom and some scrubbers to clean the mess he had made. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you a zero for this lesson Severus." Snivellus looks distraught but angry at the same time.

"It was them!" he said pointing at me along with the marauders.

"Now now, we don't want any false accusations Mr Snape. Just clean up this mess," Slughorn said reluctant to scold his favourite pupils. I gave James a low five underneath the table and then we bottled out potion, handed it in, and set about cleaning our work station.

 **Hope you enjoyed this chapter!**

 **Remember to review and favourite and follow and all that stuff.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Time for a new chapter! Sorry it took so long, but here it is**

Prongs POV:

"It's the first day, why do we have so much to do!?" I whine to myself, hitting my head off the table for the second time today. We are all sitting around the fireplace. Remus is hurriedly writing out his History of Magic essay about the ever so boring Goblins Revolt; Sirius is enchanting paper balls to follow first years as they walk around the common room and hit them repeatedly on the head all whilst muttering "Die, peasants, die,"; and Peter was doing the expected and eating the chocolates he had brought from America one after the other. I, on the other hand, am looking at the stack of books in front of me and weighing up the options of a detention from McGonagall or a detention from Sprout, all depending on which homework I decided I didn't need to do yet.

" _I'm sure I can persuade Sprout to let me off,"_ I think to myself. I then pick up my Herbology book and throw it into my school bag.

"Remus, why are you even doing your history of magic? We have two days before that's in!" I say exasperated. It always baffles me how Moony can magically do all his homework before the due date.

He shrugs, "I might as well get it out of the way because knowing you guys I'll probably be forced into doing something and forget all about it until the last minute." With that he then puts his quill back to the paper and blocks out all noise once again.

Sighing defeatedly and dejectedly, I try get to work.

*Two hours later*

"And that ladies and gentleman is how we managed to fight off a herd of bloodthirsty centaurs in just our second year," I finish, grinning out at the group of fifth year girls that have gathered around us: the marauders. I glance to the side at my unfinished homework, but brush it off. " _I'm sure McGonagall won't mind."_

Of course what we just told them wasn't the entire truth, more like a twisted, modified version of the story. Yes, we did run into a pack of centaurs in the forbidden forest. But no, we didn't insult them cockily and aggrevate them enough to want to fight us.

*Second Year*

" _You see that tree?" Sirius said, pointing towards the tallest one the eye could see._

" _Yes...?" Remus replied wearily. We all knew what was coming really._

" _I can climb it with my eyes closed," Sirius smirked and he ran off into the distance. We three shared a look, sighed, and ran after him._

" _Why does everything result in running?" Peter complained from the back of the group._

"Well Peter if you ate properly like the rest of us you probably wouldn't have a problem with runnning more than 10 metres!" _I thought to myself as I jumped over a tree root._

 _We all stopped dead._

 _Right in front of us was a group of around seven centaurs._

" _Oh it seems we went the wrong way! Sorry to disturb you, we'll be off now!" Remus panicked and then we attempted to run away._

" _HOLD IT!" the centuar with a honey coat shouted. We all stopped dead. We turned around slowly._

" _Yes?" I squeaked._

" _Have a nice day now, kids," he said with a smile and then they turned around back to their business. Sirius, Remus, Peter, and I all just stared at each other and with a nod from me we all ran back to Hogwarts._

 _*End of thingy*_

"You're all so brave!" a dark skinned girl says to us, as she smiles.

"So brave!" another girl with blonde hair echoed.

"Well its all a days work really for us; nothing we couldn't handle," I smirk and then I quickly avert my eyes to Lily at the other side of the room. She swiftly looks back down at her book and I see her blush. " _She likes me, obviously,"_ I say to myself in my head.

"After a few hexes and insults we basically had them in the palms of our hands," Sirius said, tossing his hair back effortlessly and making the girls around him blush or smile.

"To be honest though, I would have prefered to have faced something a bit more challenging," Remus wonders aloud, allowing some of the girls to giggle.

"Guys, I don't remember this story. I thought that w-"

"OKAY THAT'S ALL!" I say hastily, glaring at Peter subtely. I then fake a yawn. "We should be off to bed now! Night!" As we grab all of our things and get ready to go, we hear a chorus of "Night!" and with that we head off.

When Sirius closes the door to the dorm, we all turn round to face Peter.

"What was that?! You could have blown it for us!" Sirius whisper shouted, sounding deadly.

"W-w-well I just didn't remember that happe-"

" **W-w-well** then maybe _next time_ you should just go along with it and don't ask questions," I huff at Peter and sit down on my bed. He looks down at the floor defeated and then makes his way to his bed. We all get changed, say our goodnights, and then we turn out the lights.

*2 a.m.*

"Shit..." I mutter to myself. " _Okay, I could do my transfiguration now and not get any sleep or I could get sleep and get a detention..."_ I think to myself.

My head hits the pillow in an instant.

*Transfiguration the next day*

"Alright everyone, get our your homework," McGonagall says. She watches intently as everyone reaches into their bags and gets out their work, all apart from me. With a flick of her wand, all the papers fly towards her and I think to myself that I can get away with this and that I can be the first person to defy McGonagall. But then she starts checking the work.

"Hmm, seems all in order so far however Potter," she says, I jump when she mentions my name, "It appears as though you don't have your homework. Would you care to explain why?" she asks in a sweet tone which lets me know that I have severly messed up.

"Well you see, Professor, I wasn't feeling to well last night –ask anyone– and after managing to complete only one piece of homework –history of magic–I decided that I was too ill too complete your homework in my state – because I didnt want to hand in a bad piece of work- and so Sirius, Remus, and Peter escorted me down to the hospital wing. I hope you understand professor," I finish and then flash her a smile.

She smiles back.

"That sounds dreadful James. Did you come down with a case of invisibilty too? Because I was in the hospital wing last night speaking to Madame Pomfrey and I never saw you there," she finishes and her sweet tone disappears.

"Well, miss that might have been one of the syptoms I had when I was i-"

"Be quiet James."

"Yes miss."

"I'll see you outside of my office tonight at the start of dinner, don't be late or else," she says, narrowing her eyes at me and with that she dismisses us from the room. Deflated, I pack away my things and leave the classroom with Sirius, Peter, and Remus.

"Tough luck, buddy" Sirius says with a smile, ruffling my hair. I brush him off.

"You know what? I don't recall _you_ doing any homework last night, how did you get away with it?" I ask him.

"I have my ways," he replies and slips two galleons into a passing fourth years hand. Remus rolls his eyes and then we set out for our next lesson. Divination. Fun fun fun.

*Detention*

"You are staying here for an hour and you must complete the homework that was due in for last lesson. If you don't you'll get points knocked off," McGonagall explains to me in a firm way.

"Yes professor," I reply as I reach for my quill and some parchment.

After around 30 minutes into my essay on the doubling charm, I hear a hissing noise. I look up and see McGonagall staring at me dead on and I quickly put my back head down. As I write another sentence, out of the corner of my eye I see McGonagall's head move to grade another paper and so I take my chance to look to the source of the noise.

It's Sirius and Remus. Remus has written the word "catch" in mid air with his wand and I see Sirius holding something that looks like a baked potato. Sirius throws it and I catch it with one hand, stuff it in my mouth and chew.

" _Okay so it's not poisoned..."_

I look at them again but this time Sirius us holding what looks like a bunch of peas. I start violently shaking my head and he starts violently nodding his head and it seems like that was that.

The peas soar through the air.

They land everywhere but my in my hand. However one landed in McGonagall's.

"Black, Lupin, how long do you intend to stand there and assult us with food?" she asks sharply and they slowly walk into the classroom.

"Hi professor, nice evening isn't it?" Sirius said cheerfully and Remus just looked at the floor.

"What on earth are you two doing here?" she questions.

"Well professor, it has come to our attention that James did not eat dinner tonight and we didn't want him to starve or get ill so we came to give him some food. You can't expect us to let our friend starve professor!" Sirius says. McGonagall gives a small smile.

"I guess you're right to some degree. Potter you can go and eat and come straight back here to finish your essay. If you're not here by 8:00pm I will assume you have disobeyed me and I will take off 20 points."

"Thank you professor!" I say and run to join Padfoot and Moony.

 **Hope you enjoyed!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hi! Has this taken too long for me to post? Meh I'm here now anyways. Enjoy!**

Moony's POV:

"And how about you Mr Longbottom, are your parents fairing well after their expedition?" Slughorn asks Frank. He takes a swig of mead from his tall green glass and then rests his head on his hand, his elbow being supported by the dining table. James, Sirius, and I all copy him, smirking at Frank who glares at us but then returns his gaze to Slughorn.

"How did you know th-

"Was it good?" Slughorn says fascinated.

"I haven't hea-

"Did they find the Black Chimeras they were looking for?"

"I guess th-

"Very rare they are, very rare, _and_ their eyes are great in potions and sell well. It's nice to catch up with old students you know," He sighs and then turns his attention to a third year Slytherin who looked as if he was trying to avoid Slughorn's intense cross examination.

Losing interest I look out of the window on the opposite side of the room. The canopy of luminous stars light up the dark night and reflect off of the Black Lake and hanging over all of that beauty is the unfinished moon that towers over everything, claiming everything for its own. I've started to feel the effects of the moon again recently as the change should happen tomorrow. My senses are sharp again and the wolf inside of me is itching to get out and about, but I have to contain him for now.

I figured out that naming my fear makes it easier to deal with and that's where my nickname Moony comes from. Moony isn't the same person as me but at the same time he is. He is the more violent, more dominating, more powerful side to me and towards this time of the month he is in control of all my actions. Only a few people know about my condition and they include a few teachers, James, Sirius, Peter, and Frank Longbottom who found out as we have shared a dorm with him since our first year.

Shaking my head slightly, I brush those thoughts out of my mind and remember that Peter should be getting the ink right now. I hope he doesn't mess up. Memories flood my mind from the last time we asked Peter to do something for us. I shudder remembering that two week long detention. God I _really_ hope he doesn't mess up.

I zone back into the conversation and see James attempting to start a conversation with Lily who is reading the back of the mead bottle in a vain hope to get him to go away. I snicker under my breath and immediately regret it as it catches Slughorn's attention.

"Ah, Mr Lupin, I've got to say your work in Potions still amazes me, is your mother tutoring you at home?" He chuckles and takes a swig of his drink. James and Sirius copy him.

"No, actua-

"Oh I remember your mother! Wonderful witch she was, she was in Ravenclaw, right?" He strokes his chin and James and Sirius mimic him.

"Yes and m-

"And how's your father doing?" He questions me, smiling at nodding. Out of the corner of my eye I see James and Sirius doing the same thing and I subtly take out my wand from my pocket and flick it in their direction muttering, "Anteoculatia" before answering Slughorn's question.

"He's fine thank you, Sir," I say and he nods satisfied, turns to Sirius and then gasps out loud.

Only screams of laughter and horror can be heard in the room.

Sprouting out of James and Sirius' heads, at an alarming rate, are large stag antlers.

They both look at each other and scream. Everyone else backs away from the table in the blink of an eye and starts screaming, which alarms James and Sirius even more and they start screaming more too. I just laugh at them along with Frank and they both glare at me.

"Oh dear, oh dear, now where is my wand?" Slughorn panics, patting down his emerald green robes. "Mr Lupin I can't seem to find my wand, can you do the honours?"

"Sure, Sir," I say in-between laughs and I grab my wand and smirk at them and say the counter curse. Quickly the antlers start to retract back into their heads and everyone starts to calm down, however James and Sirius look quite traumatised.

"I think that should conclude our evening, good night everyone!" Slughorn says wearily and sends everyone out on their way.

"I can't believe you, Moony!" James huffs. We (Frank, James, Sirius, and I) are on our way back to the Gryffindor Common Room to retire for the night and Padfoot and Prongs can't seem to let it go.

"I have told you not to call me Moony at least a thousand times, I'm not him. Anyways, that was hilarious!" I laugh at them.

"You should have seen your faces honestly, I felt like my side was going to spilt," Frank says and then sniggers along with me.

Sirius rubs his head, "Ugh, we'll get you back when my head stops spinning. Isn't that right, Jamie?" James smirks and nods. We give the portrait the password and Frank says goodbye and sits by the fire with his friends (Christopher Scott and Brian Matthews) whereas we go up to the dorm room where Peter is waiting for us. James is about to ask whether he got the ink or not but Peter just smiles and holds up the four vials of black liquid and the enchanted beige pieces of paper.

"Nice one, Wormtail," James says and high fives him. He puts the things on the floor and we all gather around it: James lying on his stomach facing the paper, Sirius sitting up with his back leaning against his bed post, Peter copying James and me, kneeling, eager with anticipation. They have no idea how grateful I am to them for doing this for me.

"Okay, first, we've got to draw out the _entire_ of the school that we know of. We'll split it off into sections. Prongs you can do the grounds, Hogsmeade, and the ground floor; Wormtail you can do the second and third floors; Moo- I mean Remus you can do the fourth and fifth floors; and I'll do the sixth and seventh floors." Sirius says, taking control of the whole operation. We nod and get to it, each taking a vial and a part of enchanted paper.

"Oh Peter, you'll never guess what happened at the Slug Club meeting," I say, laughing once again at the memory of it.

"Really, Remus? I don't want to talk about it again," says Sirius seriously, but I can see a trace of a smile on his face. I ignore him and tell Peter what happened instead. We all laugh and tell and share stories and reminisce and before we know it we have finished drawing.

We then place the pieces on each other in order from the ground floor to the top floor and James joins them together with a spell. "Alright what should we be called? If anyone ever finds this map I don't want them to know who we are."

"How about just having our names? Well our nicknames that is."Peter suggests but I shake my head.

"Too boring, how about...Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs?" I suggest and they all like it but James complains a bit about being last on the list. Sirius folds up the paper and on the front draws a picture of Hogwarts Castle and on top of that writes " _Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are proud to present: The Marauder's Map"_

"Okay now we need a password and I think I have one in mind, everyone grab your wands and repeat after me: _I solemnly swear that I am up to no good_ ," James says and we all repeat and the paper glows red and gold for a few seconds and then goes back to its old beige colour. "Perfect, alright so whenever we need to use it just point your wand at it and say those words and it would open up for you."

"We should have something happen when someone unauthorised tries to use it!" I suggest, "How about this

"Mr Moony presents his compliments to blah blah, and begs blah blah to keep their abnormally large nose out of other people's business.""

They all laugh and pitch in their ideas as well.

"Alright, time to make this map come alive," Sirius says and then runs and gets a book out of his school bag and flick through the pages, "Okay so the spell is _Animari_ and it says here that the more casters that cast the spell the longer it lasts. So four should be enough to last us around a good 200 years," he finishes and we all gather around the map and say the spell.

We all gasp in wonder and in awe.

On the map suddenly there are footprints everywhere with labelled names. Over on the third floor we see Filtch and Mrs Norris walking around, in the Quidditch grounds there are some fourth years messing around, and right here, on the seventh floor we see our names.

We all cheer and high five each other. I'm pretty sure no one has ever managed to do this before let alone four fifth years.

"Finishing touches, we need something to say to close off the map when we are finished with it," Prongs says. We all think for a bit but then I get an idea.

I grab the paper off the floor and look around at the faces beside me; the faces of my friends who stood by me and will stand by me through anything despite my condition. I smile at them and then point my wand at the paper and say:

"Mischief managed..."


	6. Chapter 6

Damn, it's been ages! Kinda my fault but shush

 _Recap:_

 _"Finishing touches, we need something to say to close off the map when we are finished with it," Prongs says. We all think for a bit but then I get an idea._

 _I grab the paper off the floor and look around at the faces beside me; the faces of my friends who stood by me and will stand by me through anything despite my condition. I smile at them and then point my wand at the paper and say:_

 _"Mischief managed..."_

Wormtail's POV:

I look up at Remus and see pure joy displayed all over his face. Seeing as his transformation is coming ever closer, usually his now shining, large eyes would be sunken and dull and filled with pain... So much pain... His smile, no matter how hard he tried to appear happy when he was, always seemed weak and transparent, but, right now, he has never looked so radiant and he seems revitalised. If I'm honest, seeing him like this so close to the change makes me feel warm inside and I (along with James and Sirius) beam back at him.

James laughs, "I'm being serious here, Remus, if you were to smile any wider your cheeks would rip apart!" Remus gives him a light hearted glare but not once does his smile falter.

"James," Sirius deadpans, "that has got to be the worst impression of me ever." I smack him upside the head and we all start laughing up until it happened.

First, we heard the door slam at the bottom of the staircase.

Straight away our voices cut off. The dormitory was the quietest it had been all night. We all turned to face each other and our faces all betrayed the same emotion: fear.

Then, the footsteps started. They were fast, heavy, and loud more than anything and the troubling thing was that they were heading straight for our dorm.

It was then that we all snapped into action.

Sirius grabbed the map and threw it and himself onto his bed and drew the curtains. James threw his invisibility cloak over the remaining things and he too hid behind his curtains. Remus followed suit but not before flicking his wand and closing the windows and curtains and switching off the lights. At this point, the steps were ever closer. The sound of them were echoing and bouncing off the cold, stone walls and breathing of the perpetrator could be heard. It was ragged and I knew that if I didn't take action soon it wouldn't end well for me.

Completely forgetting about the cloak on the floor, I went to run to my bed and jump but my foot gets caught on the cloak. I fell. Hard. I looked up and saw the faces of my friends peeking out from their curtains. James reached out a hand to pull me up but then the door burst open and it quickly retracted along with their faces.

Slowly, oh slowly I turned around to face my doom. My eyes widened at the sight.

It was... Frank Longbottom?

"Peter?! What are you doing?!" he whisper shouts, bewildered at the sight of me sprawling on the floor.

"To be honest, I don't even know," I mutter and then look down. I feel a hand on my arm though and my head instantly snaps up.

"You don't have time to have an existential crisis, Peter, McGonagall found out we are still all up after midnight and she's in the common room right now! I had to leg it up here before she saw me!" He says breathlessly, dragging me up and rushing to his bed. He quickly strips off and gets into his night attire and I copy him and then we both do our best to pretend that we are sleeping and not a moment too soon either as the door slams open for the second time tonight (or rather morning) and, I presume, McGonagall strides in.

She lets out a contempt huff and after a few seconds the door closes again. I quickly open my curtains again and let out a loud sigh "Jeez that was close!"

"That's what I thought," McGonagall says, turning the lights on, revealing that she never left after all. I blush slightly and look down sheepishly and all I hear is groaning from the other beds as they too open their curtains.

"I thought you learnt from the past 5 times, Peter," Remus says, shaking his head is mock disappointment.

"Did you really think she would leave?" Frank asks me laughing slightly. I shrug a bit. James and Sirius look at me and then at each other and snicker but then after one stern look from McGonagall they both stop.

"It is midnight, boys! Why are we still up? Anyone care to explain?" She firmly addresses the whole room but this time Remus is the one who speaks up.

He takes a breath, "I'm sorry, Professor, it's my fault. As you know it's quite close to the change and I woke up ill. They were just trying to help me go back to sleep." The moment he mentions the "change" her face softens ever so slightly.

"Oh," she says, "I see. But still I won't tolerate this type of behaviour again! Next time, change or not you will ALL receive detention. Do I make myself clear?"

We all nod.

"Good. Not another word." And with that she leaves.

*The Next Morning*

As much as I would have liked to have been awakened by the cliché sound of songbirds and with the sun shining down on my face, instead I was awarded with an attack of pillows from James and Sirius. Groaning, I shove them off and go to shout at them but worried expressions appear on their faces and James shushes me, whilst Sirius points at Remus' bed.

I look over at Remus and my heart drops a little. To say he looked like death would be an understatement.

His cheekbones are more accentuated and gaunt than ever and his cheeks have lost their usual pink hue and his skin has turned the exact same pasty shade of that of the very werewolf he should turn into in less than 12 hours. Decorating his creased forehead and brown-grey hair are little droplets of sweat that cover the pillow and ruffled bed sheets he occupies too. His chest is rising up and down and up and down and up and down at an alarming rate too. It seems like right now the best course of action would be to let him sleep for as long as he can.

"I think right now, whilst he is sleeping and Frank is gone, would be the best time to see if our animagi forms work," Sirius says to James and I.

"I'm still tired though! It might not work!" I complain, rubbing my eyes but regardless I slowly manage to separate myself with my bed. James is the first to transform and in mere seconds a large, majestic stag appears in the dormitory and Sirius and I silently applaud him. Sirius goes next and then it's my turn.

I always found this difficult and yet James and Sirius make it seem effortless. In order to transform, one needs to feel the will to change, the need to convert, the reason to transform all at once. It needs to be their most powerful and dominant emotion in that split instant and at that moment the animal inside can take over. That might seem easy but if your reasoning is too weak, if your will is too small, if your need is too scarce it won't work. As well as this, the animal you will turn into is based off of your personality. You don't have a choice. That's how James ended up with an arrogant, prideful stag and Sirius as man's best friend. It takes days, months, years even of training to learn what your animagus wants and how to let it take over and of course Sirius and James were naturals at this. All they wanted to do was help their friend and that conviction was enough to allow them to transform fully within the first six months of training, whereas it took me nearly a year.

I squeeze my eyes shut and think of all my friends: a laughing James with his arms around both Remus and Sirius; Sirius ruffling James' hair, he too smiling; and finally a healthy, happy Remus, with no traces of scars or melancholy. Remus has always been close to me. He was the first friend I made once starting Hogwarts and I have no intention of letting him suffer alone through this. Not after he has helped me so many times whilst battling his own demons. I force the will for my friends' happiness and Remus well-being through my veins, my blood and my very being and then my head goes fuzzy.

My eyes open and content floods through me as I realise I am in the form of a rat. Sadly though, this is short lived as we all transform back as Remus begins to stir. We all rush over to his bed as his eyes slowly open and squint at the sunlight streaming through the bedroom windows. I hurriedly go and close them all.

"How are you doing?" James asks Remus. Remus tries to sit up but I'm guessing his head made that too hard for him so he went back to lying down.

He sighs, "about as well as I normally would be at this time of the month." James nods and looks down a bit. Remus, sensing James' worry smiles a bit, "at least I'll be in the hospital wing whilst you guys are in Divination." We all chuckle a bit and decide to leave Remus to lie down for a bit whilst we all get ready, making sure to keep the noise level down to a minimum. It's only at times like this when we marauders consider silence as a priority.

Sirius walks over to Remus and offers his shoulder, "Come on, let's get you ready." A small, gentle smile makes its way onto Remus' face and he accepts it. James throws Remus' uniform at Sirius and he catches it almost lazily and then he leads Remus into the bathroom. We all help out as much as we can with Remus to keep his stress and strain levels throughout the day to a minimum so normally we take it in turns to help do menial tasks for him.

After around 5 minutes, they both walk out again.

"I told you, Remus, stop hitting on me every time I help you get dressed," Sirius jokes, tossing his mane over his shoulder. "My eyes are for Snape only."

Remus laughs a bit, though I notice a bit of unease as he does so. He puts his hand dramatically on his forehead, "I'm sorry. I just can't help myself, Sirius!" We all laugh and then we head down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"By the way, we'll explain the plan at lunch when we come visit you in the hospital wing," James says and I nod. Remus smiles and thanks us as we sit down for food opposite from Frank and his friends.

"Are you alright, Remus?" asks Christopher "It looks like you've seen a ghost!" he exclaims jokingly and next to me I feel Remus flinch slightly.

"Don't worry, it's just his time of the month," Sirius chuckles and everyone joins in, not understanding the true nature of the situation, all apart from Frank and us: the marauders.

"Well then, I'll give you some chocolate later," Frank laughs and again the table dissolves into giggles and laughter. Remus nods appreciatively, a dainty smile gracing his face.

We all get around half way through our breakfast when McGonagall arrives at our table, "Mr Lupin, you're needed elsewhere. Hurry now." James, Sirius, Remus, Frank and I all exchange knowing looks. We all say our goodbyes and he leaves the table and the hall with McGonagall, not unnoticed by a certain Slytherin on the other side of the room...


	7. Chapter 7

**Ahh it's been so long since I've uploaded. I would give you an excuse but I'm too lazy of think of one so I'm just gonna give you the new chapter instead.**

Padfoot's POV:

Why does every Divination lesson seem to last an eternity?

"Apparently" it's only been 5 minutes since I have last looked up at the clock but it feels like it's been an hour. Those supposed five minutes have been spent looking at a circular ball of glass and taking down useless notes about how, in James' crystal ball, the darker grey swirls mean death is approaching; the lighter grey equals death; and the white swirls represent- you guessed it- death. It's a very morbid lesson to say the least.

"Sorry, Jamie, but no matter how I look at this I think you might end up dead," I say with mock seriousness. He and Peter just snigger. I sigh loudly and exaggeratedly, "How long is this damned lesson going to last for?" James laughs once again and Peter goes to say something in return but, as he looks at something behind me, he quickly zips up his mouth and looks at the ground. James too stops laughing abruptly leaving me confused. "What is it now? Is the grim behi-"

"OH!"

I turn around and see Trelawney right behind me with an utterly aghast expression upon her face. She opens her mouth and I get ready to hear a lecture about how I should "respect the arts of divination" and how I should "not take the subject too lightly" but instead she raises an arm and points at James' crystal ball full of monochromatic swirls.

She appears to be in some sort of trance as her movements no longer seem smooth and fluent as they are rather jagged and sharp instead. She roughly shoves me aside and kneels down next to the crystal ball. I wince in pain as I fall of my chair and the class's attention quickly focuses on our table in the middle of the room. They all stare at Trelawney in her weird state.

"Professor?" James asks wearily, "Are you al-"

Suddenly, Trelawney takes a huge, raspy intake of breath and her green eyes roll to the back of her head. James shoves himself and his chair back away from her in shock nearly falling over and Peter copies his actions, completely frightened. The class also involuntarily retreat away from her, scrambling over chairs and even each other until they hurriedly left the room leaving only James, Peter and I who are too shocked to move. Her hands start clawing at the table leaving long, serrated marks in the mahogany and her arm start to shake violently as though she is being possessed. Then somehow the atmosphere in the room begins to change. An immense amount of pressure suddenly springs up around all of us in the room, making it incredibly hard to breathe let alone stand up and leave the room. My chest heaves, desperately trying to steal some oxygen before my ribcage gives up but the air seems to be fighting against me so I end up coughing and choking instead. James and Peter are in a similar state. The pressure isn't the only thing that is changing. A mysterious grey mist fills the room from Trelawney as she carries on gasping and every part of my being hopes that what we have learnt in Divination so far isn't true and that grey really doesn't actually symbolise death...

Then suddenly she starts to speak.

" _More than one shall suffer tonight,_

 _As humans aren't too terribly bright,_

 _For as the silver sphere rises over the land,_

 _The fateful ones will have to disband,_

 _As creatures aren't the only ones that roam the lands..."_

She blinks a few times and everything is back to normal. The mist disappears in the blink of an eye and all of a sudden I can breathe again. I heave and gasp trying to take in oxygen before it's all taken away from me again.

She looks around the classroom in a state and realises that all the chairs are empty. "Oh, it must be lunch already" she mutters to herself, failing to notice Peter, James and I lying on the floor wheezing, and practically floats out of the classroom.

"...What the hell just happened?" Peter huffs, grabbing onto the table to help himself up.

"I have no idea but I want to get out of here right now," James said, fixing his hair and glasses before grabbing his bag and making his way towards the door quickly. Peter and I follow him.

Trelawney's words echo in my head but I can't seem to make any sense of them. I'll think more on it when we go and talk to Remus.

We make our way down to the hospital wing I feel like someone is watching us. I snap my head around quickly and see a glimpse of black hair but I've had enough weirdness for today so I just ignore it and carry on forwards.

Quietly, James opens the door to the infirmary and we all walk over to Remus who looks as though he is at death's door.

"How are you doing, Remmie?" Peter asks, sitting down by his bed.

"Never felt better," Remus weakly smiles.

"We need to tell you the plan. Okay s-

"Wait a second, Jamie." I grab my wand out of pocket and point it at the curtains around Remus' bed, "Muffliato. Alright, carry on."

James nods at me and carries on explaining. Though Remus doesn't say much, he nods and occasionally his face screws up in concentration as he tries to process the stupidity of what we are saying but nonetheless he agrees.

"Like I said, you guys can pull out at anytime. I don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to," Remus says, resting his arm over his forehead as he closes his eyes.

"We agreed to do this right? I don't know about the rest of them but I'm not dropping out no matter what," James proudly states.

"I'm not leaving either," Peter follows and I agree with them.

A smile appears on Remus' face. Though the smile is weak it manages bring back some of the lost colour to his cheeks.

We carry on talking for a while, finalising the details of the elaborate plan that surprisingly, Peter managed to think up the majority of. Unexpectedly, we hear a sigh from outside of the curtain.

"Damn, why can't I hear them?" We hear a voice. Speedily, James leaves his seat and looks at the bottom of the curtain where he can see the shadow of what seems like a boy's pair of shoes. The perpetrator must have given up however as they quickly ran off.

Remus' eyes widen, "do you think he heard?"

"I doubt it. Don't question my magic, Remmie," I laugh and though we were a bit on edge we managed to carry on with our conversation.

*9 p.m.*

Over in one side of the common room is James, who is talking to Lily whilst looking out of the window, looking for the signal from Remus. Upstairs is Peter, who is hurriedly packing medical things into a small bag just in case anything gets out of hand and we get hurt. I'm on the other side of the common room, keeping an eye out on the moon that seems to be hiding behind a flurry of clouds. The full moon could come out at any moment and I'm honestly more on edge than ever. I talk to Christopher, Brian, and Frank to pass the time and after around half an hour James comes over to join us. He nods at me, signalling that Remus has notified us. I nod back and as I do Peter comes down from the stairs. He not-so-discretely nods his head at James and I and then joins in with the conversation.

I look outside and see the moon. The moon which held so much misery and melancholy in Remus' eyes. The moon which prevented him from being a normal, carefree teenager. The moon which glistened high above the Whomping Willow in which Remus is currently residing in. The full moon.

I fake a stretch. "You know what, I think I'm going to take a walk."

"Do you want me to come with you?" James asks, going along with my lie flawlessly.

"Stay where you are, Jamie, I'll be back before you know it," and with that I stride out of the common room, secretly grabbing James' invisibility cloak from by the portrait as I do so.

I throw the cloak over myself and I sprint down the stairs in the direction of the back exit. I accidentally bump into many people leaving them utterly confused but I don't stop to apologise. If we mess up the timing the whole plan could go wrong.

Willing my legs to go even a tiny bit faster, I finally reach the Quidditch pitch outside. The Whomping Willow is around a mile away and the secret entrance is half a mile away. If I'm fast I can make it before Filtch or Mrs Norris noticing anything out of place or hear my pounding footsteps across the grounds.

I run towards the smallest of the three trees by the furthest away stands when I see something. No wait...someone...

Cautiously approaching, I make my way over. My eyes are good at the best of times but right now the only light I have is the moon and the figure seems to be wearing all black. I can't make out who it is so I risk going even closer still. When I'm close enough to reach out and grab the person's shoulder, I take off the cloak. "Oi, what are you doing?"

The figure jumps and frantically looks around to face me.

"Snape?!"

"I knew you were up to something. You've been acting sneakily all week- don't think I haven't noticed!" he sneers at my face.

I roll my eyes, "I didn't know that your favourite past time was to stalk me. You should really consider getting a life, Snivellus." I glace up at the moon, the majority of the clouds have moved from over its surface but if I don't get a move on we are going to run out of time.

"Why are you here? If you're just here to catch me then well done! You've succeeded! Now move, I have something I have to do." I try to shove him out of the way but he grabs onto my sleeve. "Oh come on I just washed this, now there is oil all over it."

"Shut up, Black. Tell me: what are you doing? Don't think about lying either, I'll curse it out of you if I have to."

Growing frantic I start to get a little violent. If I don't hurry everything will go wrong. "I won't tell you again. Move."

Snape smirks, "Make me."

My patience snaps. In one swift movement I grab my wand my from pocket and aim it at Snape. "Rict-

"Avis! Oppugno!" He yells, and a swarm of bird erupt from his wand and try to attack me.

"PROTEGO! DENSAUGEO!" I jab my wand in his direction but he dives out of the way and the spell hits a nearby tree. He throws another curse at me but I duck and roll on the floor whilst throwing all the foul curses I could think of towards Snape but he is a lot faster than he looks. He blocks my attacks and dodges them until I get an idea.

"Levicorpus!" I think as I point my wand in Snape's direction. He starts yelling as he rises into the air and his wand drops from his grasp.

"BLACK, PUT ME DOWN! TELL ME WHAT YOU'RE DOING!"

"DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW THAT BADLY?! FINE THEN! GO TO THE WHOMPING WILLOW, SERVES YOU DAMN RIGHT!" I shout right back at him. I flick my wand in the direction of the tree and I let go of my concentration, sending him flying towards the tree. He lands near the tree and I hear a sickening crack. He clearly broke something. I hope it was his neck.

A cry comes from his shuddering form but nonetheless he gets up clutching his right arm and makes his way over to the tree.

Then and only then do I realise my mistake.

The moon is clear.

The willow is unguarded.

Moony is awake and I've almost certainly lead Snape to his death.


End file.
